The most gravely wounded victims of the bombing in Chechnya never make it to Atagi. But the screams of the injured men and women who survived the 18-mile trip south from the bomb-splintered capital of Grozny to be carried into this makeshift hospital Friday made seasoned medics shudder. "Oh my God, where will this end?" cried nurse Aina Saina as yet another young man with part of his legs blown off was carried by on a stretcher.

WASHINGTON - Russia, an arms provider and principal player in the ongoing Syrian civil war, is doing far too little to help the war's millions of victims, international humanitarian agencies say. As world powers pledged new aid Wednesday at a donors conference in Kuwait, humanitarian groups said Moscow had been a standout in its failure to contribute adequately to the struggling international effort to help the injured and displaced. Russia has contributed about $24 million toward the United Nations appeal, about 5% of what it should give based on its size, according to Oxfam America.

Re "Pursuit of WWII Redress Hits Japanese Boardrooms," Jan. 10: Reading the article about lawsuits being filed on behalf of victims of Japanese forces during World War II caused me to wonder if the precedent established in such actions could result in the United States being hauled into court by victims of our meddling in Latin American affairs, specifically, our helping Somoza, Pinochet and a murderous Guatemalan regime rise to power. Will Dow Chemical be sued since it made napalm?

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government on Wednesday enacted a controversial law aimed at giving recognition and recourse to tens of thousands of victims of the drug-related violence that has raged across the nation for the last six years. In a ceremony where survivors held photographs of missing or slain children, parents and spouses, President Enrique Peña Nieto said the law would require authorities to assist victims and establish a fund for possible reparations. “There is today a Mexico that has been hurt by crime,” the president said.

President Reagan, responding to protests from Jews and veterans against his plan to lay a wreath at a German military cemetery next month, sought Friday to emphasize his commitment to remembering victims of the Holocaust and Americans who died in World War II.

Pope John Paul II will beatify 108 Poles who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, when he visits his native Poland in June, the Vatican has announced. The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints cleared the way for beatification, the last step before sainthood, by certifying at a ceremony attended by the pope that all 108 had died as martyrs to their faith.

MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government on Wednesday enacted a controversial law aimed at giving recognition and recourse to tens of thousands of victims of the drug-related violence that has raged across the nation for the last six years. In a ceremony where survivors held photographs of missing or slain children, parents and spouses, President Enrique Peña Nieto said the law would require authorities to assist victims and establish a fund for possible reparations. “There is today a Mexico that has been hurt by crime,” the president said.

WASHINGTON - Russia, an arms provider and principal player in the ongoing Syrian civil war, is doing far too little to help the war's millions of victims, international humanitarian agencies say. As world powers pledged new aid Wednesday at a donors conference in Kuwait, humanitarian groups said Moscow had been a standout in its failure to contribute adequately to the struggling international effort to help the injured and displaced. Russia has contributed about $24 million toward the United Nations appeal, about 5% of what it should give based on its size, according to Oxfam America.

MEXICO CITY - It must have seemed like a good idea at the time: a memorial to the thousands of victims of the drug violence that has convulsed Mexico for most of the last decade. Washington, after all, has its Vietnam War memorial. New York has its monument at the site of the World Trade Center. But even as the winning design was being announced, Mexico's tribute was stricken by the conflicting visions and bitter disputes that have driven wedges into Mexican society. Innocent civilians, police officers on duty and soldiers fighting drug cartels are among the more than 50,000 dead in the government's crackdown on the cartels.

Sudan is keeping aid workers from helping victims of fighting between the government and rebels, said officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Red Cross, the United Nations and others have repeatedly protested their lack of access to the western region of Darfur, where aid agencies estimate that fighting has killed hundreds and forced more than 600,000 to flee.

MEXICO CITY - It must have seemed like a good idea at the time: a memorial to the thousands of victims of the drug violence that has convulsed Mexico for most of the last decade. Washington, after all, has its Vietnam War memorial. New York has its monument at the site of the World Trade Center. But even as the winning design was being announced, Mexico's tribute was stricken by the conflicting visions and bitter disputes that have driven wedges into Mexican society. Innocent civilians, police officers on duty and soldiers fighting drug cartels are among the more than 50,000 dead in the government's crackdown on the cartels.

The price of war Re "Remembering California's war dead," Nov. 6 You cite figures indicating that there have been 6,204 U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a veteran of World War II, I can still remember the wounds and suffering of that long-ago time. Veterans Day will soon be upon us, and it should bring home the fact that every war really represents a failure of humans to conduct their affairs in a sensible and civilized way. Dead soldiers are victims even more than they are heroes.

Spain's world-famous magistrate, Baltasar Garzon, has made many enemies over the years. He has indicted Osama bin Laden. He has gone after Spanish paramilitaries, Basque separatists and members of drug mafias. On this side of the Atlantic, Garzon is best known as the judge who pushed the frontiers of international law, trying to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London and launching an inquiry into the suspected torture of detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo.

The skeletal remains of hundreds of people killed 15 years ago near the small Liberian village of Kpolokpai were transported in wheelbarrows to a marked mass grave Sunday where they were buried in a formal ceremony. The church service honoring the dead is intended to try to put to rest this particular chapter in Liberia's 14-year civil war, which left an estimated 250,000 people dead. Mourners, including church leaders and farmers, stood with their hands folded as the remains were lowered into a 10-foot-wide pit. Liberia's Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined that the Kpolokpai massacre in 1994 was led by fighters of the Liberia Peace Council, a rebel group fighting Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia.

When Maira Martinez graduated from college in Bogota, she had dreams of being a female Indiana Jones, excavating ancient burial sites and unlocking secrets to Colombia's rich pre-Hispanic past. These days, she's sifting through a much more recent, and grisly, past. The 27-year-old forensic anthropologist is a member of one of 12 exhumation teams working to recover and, they hope, identify the remains of thousands of victims of Colombia's civil war.

BUENOS AIRES -- Thousands of dissidents silenced under Argentina's military dictatorship -- tortured, executed and made to "disappear" in the so-called Dirty War against dissent -- are gaining new voice through poetry. A new book, "Poesia Diaria" (Everyday Poetry), tells the victims' story through the memories and verse of families who lost sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives.

The last de facto president of Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship must stand trial on charges that he kidnapped children of those killed in the country's "dirty war," a judge ruled Monday. Reynaldo Bignone and six other high-ranking officers will face prosecution in a case investigating allegations that some children of slain dissidents were handed over to members of the military, federal Judge Guillermo Montenegro ruled.

Jorge Julio Lopez has become known as the man who was disappeared twice. The first time was in 1976, during the dark days of Argentina's military dictatorship, when he was a labor activist. Lopez survived the beatings, humiliations and electric shock, and was released after three years, apparently judged not a threat. He went on with his life, reared two children and seldom spoke about the ordeal.